


See What Leant

by foggynite



Category: Project ARMS (Anime)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers, Training, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 12:27:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30072216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foggynite/pseuds/foggynite
Summary: Even with his arm going to sleep and Hayato drooling on him, he doesn’t dare move.
Relationships: Takeshi Tomoe/Hayato Shingu





	See What Leant

**Author's Note:**

> Written some time between 2002 and 2005.
> 
> Original Notes: Takes place between the first and second seasons. Vague spoilers for the first season, but nothing major. Title taken from Arthur Christopher Benson’s poem “Courage”.

Maybe there’s no one home...

Thunder rumbles overhead as Takeshi knocks on the front door again. He hopes no one’s home. This was a stupid idea and he’s ready to leave before the storm hits. Unfortunately, the door swings open before he can turn away.

“Tomoe?”

Hayato’s grandfather is standing in the doorway, regarding him curiously in the dark of night. The hallway behind him is pitch black, too. He’s kind of a creepy old man, like that.

“Y-yes, sir. I apologize for the intrusion. I was just wondering if Hayato is in?”

“Indeed, he is.” A wave of a worn hand and Takeshi is nervously trailing behind him down the Hitchcockian hall.

Thumping down the stairs to his left startles him. A gruff voice, gravelly and so unlike his own, comes out of nowhere in the darkness.

“What the hell’re you doing here?”

He can’t help the fact that he jumped. He has that reaction quite a bit around Hayato.

“Jesus, ya old geezer, can’t you turn on the lights like normal people?”

The way the other boy disrespects his grandfather makes him blush on behalf of both. He has that reaction around Hayato a lot, too.

“You’ve got two legs, free-loader. I’m sure you’re old enough to find the switches yourself.”

Then the lights are on and they’re alone. Takeshi looks everywhere but Hayato’s sleep-rumpled form. The other boy scrubs at his face, gives Takeshi a frown.

“So what are you doin’ here?”

“I—Well, I… That is, I was… Um…”

“Ooo-kay. That was painfully awkward, even for you.” Hayato turns back towards the stairs and spares a glance over his shoulder. “Think you can walk and form coherent sentences at the same time?”

Takeshi closes his mouth with a snap and glowers at him. “I just…”

Hayato keeps walking, bare feet visible as he ascends the stairs. Takeshi pauses a moment, then follows.

“It’s just… Tonight. Things were…”

And he can’t bring himself to finish the sentence as they travel down the creaking hallway to Hayato’s bedroom. Al is curled up on a bedroll in the middle of the floor, and Takeshi notices Hayato’s grimace. A quick turn and they’re heading for the balcony.

“What about tonight?” Hayato demands in a quieter voice than the one he used downstairs. “You almost looked like you knew what you were doing out there.”

It’s supposed to be a joke, but Takeshi looks up sharply at the last statement and blushes. “That’s actually what I’m here about.” He visibly screws up his courage, face set with determination. “I—I want to learn how to fight. To not just rely on my ARMS to protect me.” 

He falters at Hayato’s unimpressed expression.

“That’s what this’s about? You wanna learn how to fight?”

“Um, yes. If you could teach me…”

An eyebrow goes up, and Takeshi’s blushing harder, words tumbling out.

“If it’s not inconvenient to you, that is, because I know I’m horribly uncoordinated and I can barely throw a punch right, but my ARMS isn’t the most reliable and I think I should be able to defend myself without it, too, like you and Ryo, but he’s kind of not all together there at the moment, with Katsumi and all that, so I thought you might be—“

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” Hayato’s tone is irritable, but there’s a softening around his eyes that gives Takeshi a bit of hope. “Fine. I’ll help you since you suck and I’ll probably get killed trying to save yer ass one of these days.”

“Great! The helping part, not the dying, I mean.” He blushes harder and sways on his feet nervously.

Hayato rolls his eyes and looks uncomfortably away from Takeshi’s earnest expression.

“Whatever, man. I won’t go easy on you,” he says gruffly, but there’s the hint of a smile on his face as he turns away.

~~~

“Dammit, Takeshi,” Hayato grumbles as he clutches his eye.

Mumbling an apology, Takeshi tries to rise to his feet. It’s not his fault Hayato keeps flipping him all over the place. Besides, Hayato’s skull is _hard_ and he can’t feel his fingers.

“Why don’t we just chill for the rest of the night?” The other boy offers as he gracefully rolls to his feet and makes for the kitchen. Takeshi can only stand there awkwardly and nod.

This is the third day of their ‘training,’ they’re running out of time before Ryo wants to leave, and he wonders which one of them will break first. It’s not that Takeshi sucks—Well, maybe he does—but he just doesn’t seem to be getting the moves and Hayato’s patience gets successively shorter each session, and it’s all so very stressful.

_Quit whining. This was your idea._

Straightening his shoulders, he follows Hayato into the kitchen. Al is working on his laptop at the table, and Takeshi had hoped the boy would stay away a little longer.

The young computer genius smirks at him. “You really suck.”

Before Takeshi can respond, though, Hayato is knuckling the top of Al’s skull.

“At least we can fight, brat. He’s not just dead weight to drag around.”

“Ouch! Quit it! My brain is more useful than your fist any day, baboon!”

Knowing they can go on for hours, Takeshi just skirts around the bickering and retrieves a glass from one of the cabinets. The house isn’t so creepy anymore, since they do most of their training at night, and he’s learned his way around it better since their first visit. He’s still a little paranoid about Hayato’s grandfather scurrying around in the rafters overhead, but the old man mostly leaves them alone now.

Filling the glass with water, he can’t help frowning at his battered knuckles.

“Hey, c’mon.”

Hayato tugs once on his sleeve as he passes, and they head upstairs, thankfully leaving Al alone at the table. Takeshi honestly likes the ex-Egrigori, maybe because he reminds him of Maya, but sometimes being scrutinized by ancient eyes peering at him from such a young face can be unnerving. And Al’s been studying them a lot since they started training.

There’s no TV in the old building, but Hayato has a modest stereo in his room and that’s where they hang out. The ash-blonde boy flops down on his futon, letting Takeshi pick the music from a stack of CDs on top of the stereo. Takeshi adjusts the volume until it’s loud enough to discourage conversation but quiet enough not to disturb the rest of the house. With a sigh, he lowers his sore frame next to Hayato and stares at the ceiling.

“You don’t suck, you know.”

Rolling his head loosely to the side, Takeshi gives Hayato a disbelieving look. “Right.”

“No, really.” Hayato is gazing out the window, cheeks red. “It takes years to get good at any style, but you’re getting the basics. You just need practice.”

“We don’t have time to practice.”

Takeshi keeps watching Hayato, knowing he should turn away. The blonde glances over at him, fingers drumming restlessly on his flat stomach, and Takeshi finally looks back at the ceiling. Hayato shifts suddenly, rearranging his legs and propping his arms behind his head. His calf rests against Takeshi’s, following even when the black-haired boy goes to move his leg out of the way. Keeping his eyes firmly on the ceiling, Takeshi let his elbow relax into Hayato’s side. Neither speaks.

They lay like that for over an hour, until the CD whirs to a stop and Takeshi realizes he needs to head home. He doesn’t need to ask if they’ll spar tomorrow, and Hayato watches him prepare to go with half-lidded eyes, arms still tucked behind his head pulling his shirt up to expose a strip of flesh.

“Bye,” Takeshi says quietly. Hayato waves lazily and lets his eyes fall shut. Only then does Takeshi leave.

~~~

Ryo’s mom has her apron on again, humming softly while she slices up a carrot with a giant knife. Takeshi’s had a hard time reconciling the way she appears now with the gun-toting professional mercenary that saved them. He just smiles, though, as he accepts the plate of vegetables from her.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“No problem, sweetheart.”

“What movie ya wanna watch?” Hayato calls out from the living room. Takeshi looks questioningly at Ryo, who’s still rooting around in the fridge.

“Anything but a chick flick,” Ryo tosses over his shoulder.

“How about Pulp Fiction?” Hayato shouts back.

“Sure.”

Takeshi ducks back into the living room with his tray and is confronted with Maya blinking innocently up at him from behind her open schoolbook. He’d almost forgotten she was with them, she was being so quiet.

“Um, guys, how about something less violent?” He offers with a strained smile, by ‘less violent’ meaning less gore, less vulgarity, less nudity, less everything.

Ryo groans as he brushes past him with the drinks, and Hayato turns from the movie cabinet with a frown. Meeting Hayato’s eyes with a firm gaze, Takeshi looks pointedly at his little sister sitting next to the coffee table.

“Oh, right. Yeah. ‘Less violent’ it is…” 

The blonde returns to the cabinet trying to hide his rueful expression, but Takeshi doesn’t apologize like he once would have. Maya is his little sister, after all, and he isn’t going to be the one responsible for exposing her to those sorts of movies.

“I have seen rated R movies before, brother,” she says with her patient ‘I’m not stupid and I’m more mature than you’ tone. He glowers at her.

“Maybe I don’t feel like watching it, hm?”

She just rolls her eyes and returns to her schoolwork. Hayato waves a comedy around triumphantly and they agree on Ice Age. Ryo throws himself on one end of the couch, while Takeshi gingerly takes the other end. He hugs a throw pillow to his chest, trying to ignore the bruising to his ribs. He and Hayato mutually agreed to take the night off from training. They’ll both live longer that way.

When Hayato comes over to sit, he expects some sort of protest over the remaining seat, but the blonde just slouches down into the middle of the couch without complaint. He tries to concentrate on the movie, but the heat pressing along his right side makes his mind… wander. Like to contemplating the light dusting of fine hairs on Hayato’s forearm, or the curve of muscle around bone highlighted by the television.

Ten minutes into the movie, and Hayato is beginning to slump to his side. An image of the blonde slamming into concrete flashes through Takeshi’s mind, sharp and painful as he quickly studies Hayato’s face in the television light. The other teenager is obviously tired, worn out by the battle with Gantz like the rest of them. He’s just too stubborn to admit it.

Takeshi pulls the throw blanket from the back of the couch and spreads it over his lap with one arm, casually draping the edge over Hayato’s legs, too. A ghost of a smile flits over Hayato’s face without him looking away from the television. His eyes are unfocused, though, and Takeshi lets his arm stay along the back of the couch, still stretched from when he grabbed the blanket. The back of Hayato’s head presses against the crook of his elbow.

Another ten minutes and Hayato’s eyes are closed, head dropping in tiny increments until he’s resting on the throw pillow Takeshi was hugging to his chest. Slowly, Takeshi’s arm lowers to rest along his shoulder, down his bicep and back. They just slump together, leaning diagonally across the couch while they both get comfortable and try not to kick Ryo. Takeshi purposefully doesn’t look at the other boy to see his reaction.

They stay like that for the rest of the movie, Hayato softly snoring and Takeshi watching him more than the screen. At one point, the pillow slips from between them, but he doesn’t bother trying to put it back, because Hayato’s neck was at an awkward angle with it, anyway. His cotton t-shirt seems thinner than he thought as the heat radiating from Hayato is trapped by the blanket until Takeshi thinks he’s sweltering. But he doesn’t mind. 

He doesn’t even realize the movie’s over until Ryo gingerly pulls himself off the couch, trying not to disturb Hayato’s long legs, and walks over to eject the DVD. Maya is still on the floor, schoolbooks set aside. She meets Takeshi’s eyes with a smug grin and looks to Ryo.

“I think I can handle another movie; how about you?” She says quietly.

Ryo follows her gaze, smiles at Takeshi, who’s blushing horribly with Hayato sprawled over him, and nods. “Yeah, sure. No school tomorrow.”

Takeshi can only lie there, face crimson, and be thankful. Even with his arm going to sleep and Hayato drooling on him, he doesn’t dare move.

The second movie is Peter Pan and he gets caught up in the flashy cinematography. He glances down during a slow scene, realizing Hayato has stopped snoring, and is surprised to see brown eyes staring up at him, Hayato’s expression changing from contemplative to amused when he’s caught.

A quick look at Ryo and Maya, but they’re absorbed by what’s on screen, so he doesn’t feel weird grinning back at Hayato, who just raises an eyebrow languidly, yawning and stretching out more until his chin can reach Takeshi’s breastbone. 

Slowly, the other boy burrows his arm into the couch behind Takeshi, letting his other hand rest near the dark-haired boy’s hip. At that, Takeshi tries not to blush because it’s even more like an embrace than before, but no one else seems to notice as he returns his attention to the movie.

Forcing himself to relax, he can feel the tension leave Hayato, too. Another glance down and Hayato’s eyes are closed again, his breath starting to even out. The past week is catching up with Takeshi, too, and he lets his head droop down until it rests against the crown of Hayato’s hair. He drifts off to the sound of Hayato’s snores.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr


End file.
